GameStop employees breathe a sigh of relief as Battletoads become reality

Rare's meme-spawning purveyors of joypad-smashing frustration, the Battletoads, are finally coming back for a new game of their very own on the Xbox One. Almost no information has been revealed, with a sparse and fairly unfunny trailer playing off the 1991 NES title's notorious Turbo Tunnel stage and promising three-player local co-op with 2.5D graphics for a 2019 release.

At this stage, one can only speculate. Based on the extremely limited facts, it seems we're looking at a post-modern, fiercely ironic, tongue-in-cheek Battletoads, which is about the only way you can do something like this nowadays.

Personally, I'm hoping for a return to the genre-hopping rock-n'-roll madness of the Super Nintendo's streamlined Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, rather than a straight side-scrolling brawler as per Rare Replay's relatively recent unleashing of the Battletoads arcade game. While the constant changes in gameplay style could be considered unfocused and jarring, they were also memorable and fun. Not knowing what nightmare you'd be thrown into next accounted for a lot of Battletoads' charm, and combining that willingness to push the gameplay boat out with the panic and frenzy of proper couch co-op should be a recipe for a good time with this new installment. I just hope they remember to make Clinger Winger beatable in multiplayer this time around.